


Borrowed Robes

by MercuryGray



Series: The Royal Tigress [3]
Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Disguise, F/M, Fear of Discovery, Hand Jobs, Interrogation, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 18:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb, on his way out of New York, makes a new acquaintance and gets a good deal more than he bargained for in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Robes

**Author's Note:**

> Several weeks ago, Amelie La Parapluie and I were discussing TURN, Abe’s stint in the Sugar House prison, and the loss of Caleb’s beard in his rescue attempt. And then she suggested something interesting – what would Lavinia Montrose, one of my OCs, make of our earnest little sailor? 
> 
> For those of you not familiar, the short version: Lady Lavinia Montrose made her debut in my Sons of Liberty fanfic Noli Me Tangere. She is a lady of property with an old and inattentive husband, a hidden agenda, and a strong taste in very difficult men. 
> 
> Which means poor Caleb is in for quite a time.

_ To beguile the time,  _ _   
_ _ Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,  _ _   
_ _ Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,  _ _   
_ __ But be the serpent under't.

**-Macbeth, Act One, Scene 5**

_ Why do you dress me _ _   
_ _ In borrow'd robes? _

**-Macbeth, Act One, Scene 3**
    
    
        
    
        
    
        
    
    

Caleb couldn’t help but smile as he nodded down yet another salute, wondering if this was how Ben felt all the time, walking around camp with his major’s epaulettes. How everyone had bowed and scraped to him today, walking around in his fine red coat (it  _ was  _ fine, for all that it was the wrong color.) with his perliwig and tall boots. True, he complained often enough to Ben about the idea of wearing a uniform, but this -- this was quite nice. Perhaps a uniform coat for his lieutenancy could be discussed upon his return to camp -- for special occasions, mind, not everyday wear. Wouldn’t do to have the scout riding out in Continental blue where anyone could see -- there was something to be said about his old jacket and leather breeches for the dirty work of fetching, carrying, and generally playing messenger-boy.

He hadn’t had time to go back to the inn where he’d stashed his clothes before descending on Robert Townsend’s boarding house - something of a tactical misstep, but they’d gotten there in the end. Even cautious Mr. Townsend could appreciate a major of his Britannic Majesty’s armed forces when he was seated in his front parlor delicately sipping small beer. And if that major happened to mention a certain Abraham Woodhull, and to inquire, very quietly, about the presence on the premises of a certain bag, as it would prove providential to the King’s inquiries about the gentleman, and follow the innkeeper upstairs, and, when the door was closed, badger Townsend into taking the invisible ink, well then, that was a morning well spent, wasn’t it? Everyone had gotten what they wanted. 

Well, almost everyone. Caleb let his hand drift to his face and silently mourn his beard for what seemed like the tenth time that day. Abe had his Tory bonafides and Townsend his ink, but what had Caleb gotten out of the arrangement? The trip seemed to have turned a profit for everyone but him.

“Sir!” Another snappily turned salute, and the appreciative smiles from a few young ladies on the other side of the street as he walked by, made him forget his melancholy for a bit. The day was still young -- and the officer whose coat he’d lifted had recently been paid, it seemed -- there was quite a bit of money in his pockets. 

Well, it was not as if he needed to thunder back to Ben and Washington with his news that Abe wasn’t moving anywhere. That news could wait. He quite fancied there was time for a trip of his own to Holy Ground -- once he’d changed clothes, of course. He’d known enough whores in ports across the world to know that rates varied with the cut of your jacket and the cock of your hat.

A carriage rattled by behind him, and he stepped out of the road to watch it pass, observing, with slight interest, when the driver pulled up short and a lady’s gloved hand appeared out of the window. “Ah-- Major. A word, if you please.”

Caleb resisted the urge to look around to see who was being addressed and strode up to the carriage door, hoping he had a look of polite interest on his face and trying to remember exactly where his tongue had fallen in his mouth to create the officer’s voice he’d used in the prison to belittle the jailer into letting him inside without writ or warrant. (There wasn’t much call for amateur theatricals in Setauket, but sailors on boats get mighty bored, sometimes, and there had been plenty of call for prissy kings and lords in the satires of the lower decks.)

A woman’s voice, to accompany the glove, emerged from the depths of the carriage. “Major, so sorry to bother you -- I am recently moved to the city and I’m rather afraid my coachman has gotten me lost. Would you happen to know the way to Ranelah Gardens? I fancied a walk today, and it was recommended to me by a friend.”

Oh, thank god. A question he actually knew the answer to. “I do, madam -- you’ll want to go west, past the Common, to Church Street, and you’ll come to it directly.” Was he speaking too much? Would she notice if his voice did not quite sound genuine?

“Thank you, Major -- my gratitude.” The hand was withdrawn.

But there was some other devil at work in him today, some second sense that forced his hand.  “But your friend did you no favors,” he found himself adding quickly. “The foundry’s at work today, and the wind’s out of the east. The smell will not add to your walk.”

A true story -- and the ash, too, would stain her dress, if it was a fine one. The elegant hand at the carriage’s window was joined moments later by an equally elegant face, framed in auburn curls and with a smile that would have made Bathsheba, Judith and Jezebel blush. Caleb was suddenly glad of his gambit. “I should never have known.” She observed with a smile. “My sincere thanks, Major…”

Oh, hell. “...Cooper.” He choked it out, having almost said Culper, damn him, as if the name was not already too well known. But it was not as though he could give his own name! How did Ben do this, coming up with names and pseudonyms? How did Abe keep it all straight?

“Major Cooper,” she repeated, still smiling. “You are too kind.” She considered him a moment, and then, with a slight crook to her smile, “Are you...otherwise engaged this afternoon, Major? Since I find myself out of an afternoon entertainment, I think I shall go home for an early tea. Would you...care to accompany me? The least thanks I can offer for services rendered.”

Caleb had a sudden vision of the sort of situation often alluded to in novels of a slightly lower character, the elegant lady of means entertaining callers in her private salon, and almost allowed himself the kind of smile that would have immediately given him away. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother,” he managed, trying not to sound too enthusiastic about the idea, when in fact this was, without doubt, the most enthusiastic he’d been about anything in the past month.

“No bother at all.”

Caleb managed what he hoped was the correct kind of bow to give in acceding to her request. “If you insist.”

The handle to the inside of the carriage turned, and just like that, he was helping himself inside the carriage and arranging the tails of his coat on the seat opposite what had to be one of the most gorgeous women he’d ever seen in his life. She smiled at him, and tapped with an ivory-headed cane at the roof of the carriage. “Hachell -- back to the house.” Outside Caleb could just hear the coachman cursing quietly as he turned the carriage down a side street to double back the way that they’d come. “I’m so sorry,” the goddess across from him said with a smile. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. Lady Lavinia Montrose.” She held out her hand and Caleb took it with a delicate touch, brushing his lips across the very surface of her glove and wishing, more than a little wistfully, that the glove was not an object of consideration in the exchange. A  _ lady,  _ in New York. Now that was probably a story on its own.

“Your servant, madam.” God, but she was lovely -- even in the dim light of the carriage Caleb could see that much. A picturesque hat in some type of silk sat perched atop a cloud of hair in that deep red color that, in Caleb’s rather considerable experience, usually indicated a woman of no little spirit. Add to that bright eyes, neatly figured hands, and a well cut dress that showed off a trim figure, and Caleb was beginning to doubt his ability to maintain his disguise with the possibility of such loveliness at hand. “Have you been in New York long?” He asked, merely for something to say that would take his attention off the jewel at her throat, moving pendulously with the rocking of the carriage.

“I am but a week back from Philadelphia. It is a terrible thing, this retreat.”

“Indeed it is,” Caleb agreed non-committally.

“You must forgive the state of my lodgings -- I was obliged to leave a great deal of my furniture in Philadelphia and my townhouse suffers most cruelly.”

“It cannot be worse than my own lodgings, madam,” he said with a smile, thinking, for a moment, of the tent in Pennsylvania with its half-washed bedding and hastily folded clothes. Yes, the state of her townhouse would be far superior to that no matter what its state of disarray. And he was fairly certain that any lady of title and breeding would have at least one housemaid to help tidy -- especially if she could afford to keep coach, coachman, and matched pair, to say nothing of a trunkful of dresses and hats like the ones she was wearing now.

“To what regiment did you say you belonged?” She inquired solicitously, obviously just to be polite. Caleb knew of no woman of his acquaintance who actually cared about such things.

“I didn’t, madam. The Twelfth,” he lied with a confident smile, pulling a number out of thin air and hoping, against hope, that the Twelfth Regiment of Foot was, indeed, a unit into which he might conceivably fit without her knowing otherwise. She smiled and nodded, clearly unconcerned with the information.

Niceties observed, both of them turned their attentions outward - though Caleb did allow himself another glance at the line of her chin and the long curl of hair, falling along her shoulder, that set it off to such advantage.

“I so long for London,” she observed, watching as the buildings rolled past the carriage’s windows. “Everything here seems so cramped and grim.”

“Perhaps they will build better where the fire has been,” Caleb mused, as if he, too, could picture London’s great thoroughfares and parks. He’d been to London, once, when he had sailed with a merchantman, in between whaleboats, but he had not gone to the places she was doubtless thinking of, the Palace at Saint James and Whitehall and all the houses of state. He hadn’t gotten much farther than Southwark and the stews and wineshops of the wharf -- places built for men like him. But Major Cooper, doubtless, attended at Whitehall and the Admiralty...rode his horse in the park and took tea at Almacks and gambled at Brooks’. Was that not what majors and men of fashion did?

She turned to look at him with interest. “They? You speak as if you anticipate we shall lose!”

“Well, of course they shall do the work,” Caleb amended, trying to be as carefree about the buisness as possible, “But it shall be ...English plans and English ingenuity that manage it.” God, the thought stuck in his throat like a badly chewed piece of food.

She smiled at that, evidently content. “Just here,” she announced.

The carriage pulled to a stop outside a house in one of the newly built crescents, a row of houses reaching up some three or four stories, arranged in the English fashion along a strip of parkland, cultivated to create an air of genteel elegance. Caleb stepped down quickly to help her from the carriage, admiring the elegant foot (and the equally elegant shoe) that emerged from beneath her skirts and she stepped down, privately wondering if the rest of the leg underneath those silk stockings was as well formed as the ankle promised.

The door was opened by a young lady of twenty, who bobbed courteously for her mistress and guest and just as quietly shut the door behind them, pausing to take her lady’s cloak and disengage the hat from atop its glorious nest of curls. “Lucy, tea for myself and Major Cooper in the sitting room,” Lady Lavinia said with a smile, inspecting herself for a minute in the mirror and then leading the way into her sitting room, just off the entryway.

Caleb had been expecting reduced circumstances, but nothing quite like this. But then, when one was a lady, perhaps reduced circumstances meant only that the legs of one’s Hepplewhite chairs were not quite so well-turned as most, and the upholstery had no gilt thread in. And here he’d been expecting the sort of furniture he saw at Whitehall. This was easily one of the best appointed rooms he’d ever sat in. (Not that he made a point of paying calls on the social elite of the cities in which he’d lived -- there was little call for that from sailors and spies.)

She arranged herself on one of the chairs just opposite a finely figured marquetry-topped table and invited him to take a seat opposite, waiting for Lucy to return with the tea.

“May I ask who recommended Ranelah Gardens to you, Lady Montrose?” He asked, not trusting himself to pass any kind of judgements on the appointment of the room, the location of the townhome, or the appropriateness of her gown. (Thought it was a fine gown, to be sure.)

She gave him another half-curious look.“You may -- though I may refuse to tell you,” she added with a coy smile, arranging herself on her chair and studying him with the air of a practiced coquette. “I jest, Major. It was Major John Andre who gave the idea.” 

Andre. Caleb knew that name -- knew it too well, in fact. Andre was a name constantly on Ben’s lips, for it had been Major John Andre, who had dispatched the man who had stolen papers, threatened Washington’s life, and, ultimately, killed Nathaniel Sackett. Clinton’s intelligence officer -- and therefore Ben’s opposition. And, if past performance were anything to judge by -- an exceedingly dangerous man. And this woman knew him -- knew him well enough that they had spoken of pleasure gardens and walks in the park.  _ Caleb Brewster, what have you done?  _

“Do you know him?” She asked.

“Only by name,” Caleb said with a shrug, hoping that his face had not said too much. (He had gotten into the habit of smiling too wide when his beard was in full figure, and he knew his face was already too plain with its emotions anyway.)

“He was stationed for a great while in the city, before the move to Philadelphia; apparently he was quite intimate here. As it would seem you are, Major,” She observed with an inviting look.

“A man must know the ground he defends, madam,” Caleb said, trying to brush it off as merely a matter of duty.

“Yes, indeed he must. If only all of Sir Henry’s officers were as conscientious as you -- then we might still be in possession of the capital.”

“But then we should not have met,” Caleb observed with a slight smile, catching Lady Lavinia’s eye with a quicksilver glint in it. Her smile paused a moment, and then curled with evident approval.

“Indeed.”

But the maid Lucy had reappeared with the tea -- her mistress sent her quickly away, prettily arranging the tray herself and pouring out two cups.

It had been a long, long time since Caleb had tasted real tea, since the tax on it had been imposed and every woman of his acquaintance had put away her tea caddy in favor of serving herbal decoctions (and even coffee!) on political principle. But there was something immeasurably pleasing, about watching a woman’s hands move over a tea tray with its delicate cups and saucers, the silver tongs in the sugar and the little pitchers of cream. And Lady Lavinia’s tea things were clearly of great quality, compared to the china that had populated the tables of Caleb’s youth.

“Milk or sugar?” She asked with a hostess’ practiced smile.

“Both, thank you,” Caleb said, having quite forgotten the taste of either. She poured the tea and added the milk, dropping a lump of sugar into his cup and then, glancing down at the tea tray, making a slight noise of disappointment. “Lucy!” She looked down again and frowned. “She’s forgotten the spoons,” she said.  “Do you mind?” 

Caleb shook his head, watching, almost dumbstruck, as she dipped her index finger into the tea and stirred in slow deliberate motions, finally withdrawing it when the color was even and delicately touching it to her lips to draw off  the remaining tea. 

Was it suddenly hot in the drawing room? Caleb felt the air growing close, and felt it move closer still when she looked up at him, finger still at her lips, and fixed her eyes on him, as if daring him to watch. Was she one of  _ those  _ ladies, the ones who liked a bit of backroom intrigue in thier front parlors -- the sort that supplied scandalsheets and novelists alike with material? Had she...good God. Had she liked the cut of his coat in the street and asked for directions for just this purpose?

He took the cup she offered and tried to look very busy with it while he collected his thoughts. On the one hand, she knew Andre. And on the other hand...Caleb’s eyes flew up towards her, his gaze catching at the little tucks of lace at the neck of her gown, his hand shaking just enough to let the cup rattle on his saucer and jolt his attention away from the white skin, the soft slope that dipped coquettishly behind the silk of her stomacher. Ought he to chance it? After all, how often did an opportunity like this appear? 

“What interesting things you must see out of that window, Major,” she said quickly, laughing at her own joke as she rose from her chair and joined him on the settee. “You watch it most carefully.”

“My apologies,” Caleb said, drawing his attention back to her and smiling apologetically. She returned the smile and took a sip of her tea, wincing at the flavor.

“I think this sugar is old,” she remarked, setting down her cup and moving towards the tea-table, the edge of her skirt brushing the top of Caleb’s boots. “It does not sweeten as it ought. We had the same problem in Philadelphia -- these country merchants, you know, will sell anything at all.” She dropped another lump in and stirred with one delicate finger, watching the window and backing up,  absent-mindedly, into Caleb, practically tripping over him and falling into his lap, the hand breaking her fall landing right on the flesh of his thigh, holding fast to keep her balance. He felt his breath catch. “Oh, Major! How clumsy of me.”

“My apologies entirely,” Caleb managed, wondering if she’d noticed where her hand had landed and if she’d meant to put it there, in the occasional practice of elegant females. (The well-read woman in New Haven, the captain’s daughter, had baited him with such a movement, falling into his lap and remaining there for quite some time before the turkey carpet in front of the fire had beckoned, and he had found out just how dark her hair was in the firelight.)

“Do let me stay here a moment -- I am still a little faint.” He was fully conscious of the shape of the legs underneath her dress, the curve of her rump as it separated into two hemispheres, and hoped his own body was not being quite so obvious.

“I don’t think I thanked you earlier for your help with the directions,” she said with a smile, her hand lingering on the first few buttons of his waistcoat, and then, slowly, stroking down. Caleb felt his breath hitch a little. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Happy to help,” he said, feeling his voice jerk higher for at least one syllable, her hand descending lower still and catching at the front of his borrowed breeches. Her other hand clutched the facing of his jacket, steadying herself

“You must think of something I can do to repay you,” she said, as if her hand was not already intently exploring what lay beneath his clothes. He felt his vision swim a little and his pulse quicken, his entire body as tight as a drumhead, trying to breath normally, and remember himself. But it was proving very difficult, especially given that the last person who’d….handled that particular bodily transaction had been himself, and he’d not kept quite a vision of loveliness before him as he did now. (They had not quite as many whores in Pennsylvania as he would have liked, and while long voyages at sea had made him well acquainted with deprivation, there was only so long a man could stand such things alone.) And, damn him, he was fully aware that he was responding rather quickly to her attentions, a state of affairs that might not permit the fall of his breeches to remain closed for much longer. She drew herself up, climbing over his lap and installing one silk-clad leg next to each of his, straddling him in her wide skirts. There was so little separating them now, and he was having a hard time thinking clearly, his mind fixed on the invariable outcome of the next several minutes.

“But you know what would be delightful?” She said, turning the full force of those wonderfully blue eyes upon him, smiling with such wickedness that it was all he could do not to wrap his arms around her waist and bury his face in her own. “If you would tell me who you really are,” she said coldly, sitting up a little straighter in his lap, her hand suddenly not quite so comforting.

There were times, out on the open ocean, where a ship, sailing well under a stiff breeze, would suddenly stop, a change in the wind backing the sails. Taken aback, that was what it was called -- and Caleb was taken aback now, under her power (under her hand!) and realizing that he was completely at her mercy, in more ways than one.  _ Caught. _

_ Think, Caleb, think! Say nothing. _

Her smile turned predatory, his sudden blank stare and stunned silence all but confirming her suspicions.“You know, I was quite convinced for a while, but you made two mistakes. There is no Twelfth Regiment here in New York -- I believe they are still in Suffolk. But you could hardly have thought a lady would know that. And…” she smiled here. “You did not know my name. I am not a vain woman, sir, but I do flatter myself that any man in the Army knows me,  and they know that my husband is Sir James Montrose -- a baronet. Whose wife would never be called Lady Montrose, except in grave social error.” 

She smiled again, stroking the line of his jaw as though he were a dog she were going to reward with a treat. “No matter -- who you really are is of little concern e to me. But you knew the name John Andre, if you did not know anything else -- which leads me to believe you are a scout -- or a spy. Ah-ah.” She pressed him back into the settee. ‘Now, I know Major Andre, but I have small interest in his doings -- whether or not you are indeed a spy matters very little to me. I should see no reward for turning you in. And I find I rather like you, Major Cooper. You are very earnest, and that amuses me. The army has far too few earnest men.” 

She removed her hand from his breeches and studied him from her perch. “So...Massachusetts? Maryland? Connecticut? Or...New York?” His face must have moved, because she looked pleased. “Ah, yes, I thought so. A local man.  What did you do before the war, I wonder? Farmer, farrier? No clerk has shoulders quite like this.” She smoothed the epaulettes with proprietary care. Was this, Caleb wondered, how a deer felt, staring down the barrel of a gun, knowing the end was at hand? “Certainly not a gentleman, to judge by your hands.” She picked one from its prone position on the settee and studied the palms intently, drawing a finger across his palm so lightly as to provoke desire. Caleb felt himself stir -- the captain’s daughter had drawn figures on his skin with her tongue and that had felt like this did now, just the barest hint of touch to tantalize and tease. “Ah -- I have it. A sailor. This callus, here.” She raised his hand to her lips and kissed his skin, and his body responded again, traitorous and predictable. He knew that he was stronger than she was,  but somehow there seemed little reason in fighting, in throwing her off and making a mad dash for the door. He was too stunned to move as quickly as an escape like that would have required.

He knew he should want to escape, but another part of him -- another part of him wanted to stay and let her flay him clean. His eyes met hers and he felt again like the deer before the hunter, waiting for the shot to come.

And still she smiled.

“So...what to do with you? Call for my maid, send for Major Andre to question you? Or let you run along home to General Washington?” Her eyes lit up. “No-- better still -- send you back with a message.” 

“Why should I trust anything you say?” Caleb’s voice, once he found it, was hoarse. She smiled, hearing him speak, for the first time today, without the measured cadence of class honeyed into his voice.

“Oh, you shouldn’t. But I’ve nothing to win by turning you over to Andre -- and nothing to lose in letting you go. I could care less which side wins this war -- there’s profit in it for me either way. I’ve already seen to that. And I like you, Major. Though I’d like you a deal more if you did belong to this coat.” She studied the facings with a kind of mocking regret. “So I shall let you go -- with a gift.” She leaned down, her hands pressing against his chest, lips light near his ear. “Tell General Washington to watch the ones he loves.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Just what I say. Good bye, Major Cooper-- safe travels back to Pennsylvania.”

And, game obviously finished, she climbed off of his lap, making minor adjustments to her skirts and moving towards her chair, back to the window. “Lucy won’t come unless she’s called,” she said nonchalantly, picking up her teacup and taking a sip. “Shall we say...a ten minute head start?”

Caleb was thinking furiously of how far he could get in ten minutes, how long it would take to return to the half-ruined building where he’d stashed his clothes and be off to the wharf to steal a boat. He looked at her, wondering if she was indeed serious, and watched, once more, as her mouth curled into a smile. “Unless you’d like to stay and finish our...discussion,” she offered, fixing her gaze on himover the rim of her teacup. The clock struck.

And finally he remembered how to move.

He could hardly hear anything except his heart pounding, hardly feel anything except his feet crossing the floor, his hands hot on the doorhandle. His hat he grabbed from where it had been left on the side table, and his fingers found another door to the outside, and then he was in the street, pulse pounding at his ears, the cries of street vendors and hawkers suddenly too loud, the air too warm. His manner of walking hardly mattered now -- let people think what they liked. He was five streets over before he found an alley into which he could duck out of the crowd and breathe, feeling the brick of the wall behind him against his fingers, cool in the shadows despite the sun’s warmth, his mind full of one thought only -- _ God, but that’s a woman. _

Part of him wished to run straightaway to Holy Ground, and take the first whore who showed herself, hard and fast and without pity, and another part wished to never let a woman touch his parts again. Lavinia Montrose. He’d remember the name -- so that in case when they did win he’d remember where to send the hangman.  _ Good luck to the man who tries to take that on alone, _ he thought to himself.  _ For he’s a damn fool to do it. _

**Author's Note:**

> So, Lavinia eats Members of Parliament, titled peers, and six foot three homicidal gingers for breakfast. Caleb Brewster was going to be easy pickings. Poor guy. I enjoy writing her because she's in a unique position of power, can do practically anything she wants do (and *anyone* she wants to, frankly) and uses her sex appeal to make people reveal things to her. Usually that's...political or economic information, but she's kind of a mirror that I hold up to different characters to see how they'll react -- and Caleb, being the randy thing that he is, proved fun to tease. (Ultimately, though, he's not really Lavinia's type.)
> 
> Ranelah Gardens was one of two 'pleasure gardens' in the city, modeled after the famous Vauxhall Gardens in London - though there was a garden of that name in New York as well. In the London version, people could go to enjoy a pleasant walk outside, take in any number of outdoor entertainers, and even get a bite to eat. (I imagine the New York version was not quite so well established.) Looking at a 1776 map of New York city, it is located east of a site labeled the Foundry, which means Caleb's excuse for Lavinia to give up her walk could have been a real one.
> 
> The 12th Regiment of Foot was a Suffolk regiment, and, as Lavinia reports, were nowhere near the Colonies during the time of the Revolution. However, most regiments in this period had their own distinct style of uniforms, ranging from different facings on the coat to different buttons, which Caleb might not have known but Lavinia would certainly have noticed. Better costume historians than me would be able to tell you from which unit Caleb's jacket really hails. (This practice continues until the early 20th century, when uniforms become a good deal more standardized with the introduction of khaki.)
> 
> We think of Almack's Assembly Rooms and Brooks's Club as relics of the Regency period, but they are established in 1765 and 1762, respectively, making them perfectly fair game for an officer of the period to attend. 
> 
> This just may get an addendum for what happens *after* the war. Because you can be sure when Caleb re-tells this story to Ben, he's going to leave some bits out...


End file.
